Human gender roles influence research on animals

[The Straight Story]

Human gender roles influence research on animals

In a recent study published in Animal Behavior, biology researchers Kristina Karlsson Green and Josefin Madjidian at Lund University in Sweden have shown that animals' and plants' traits and behavior in sexual conflicts are colored by a human viewpoint. They want to raise awareness of the issue and provoke discussion among their colleagues in order to promote objectivity and broaden the research field.

Lund researchers Kristina Karlsson Green and Josefin Madjidian have studied and measured how male and female traits and behaviour in animals' and plants' sexual conflicts are described in academic literature and also what parameters are incorporated for each sex in mathematical models of sexual conflict.

"We have found evidence of choices and interpretations that may build on researchers' own, possibly subconscious, perception of male and female. We have now identified and quantified terms used to describe male and female in sexual conflict research and seen that different terms are used depending on the sex being described. It is not just something we think and suppose", says Kristina Karlsson Green from the Department of Biology at Lund University.

Sexual conflicts among animals and plants mean that the male and the female disagree in various ways on mating and the raising of young.

Research on these sexual conflicts is an area that is growing rapidly. Therefore, it is especially important to make other researchers aware of and alert to the fact that their own frames of reference pose a risk, say Kristina Karlsson Green and Josefin Madjidian.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-human-gender-roles-animals.html

[niyad]

1. sadly, there is nothing new there.

[PassingFair]

2. I'll add a "duh" to your assessment...

Historical and anthropological studies are
similarly tainted by gender bias.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Scientists are anything but neutral, disinterested observers.

I think of people like Jane Goodall and her brilliant work, that found such difficulty getting recognized by the Old Boys Club.

[seabeyond]

4. this has been my point for last couple years with some of these studies that come out

on gender issues. not only... but it is so obvious. and people pick these up, use them, per agenda.

there is a female australian scientist that really gets into this. i have lost her name

[snot]

5. K&R'd.

[seabeyond]

6. kr nt